About

My name is Michael Petaja.

My experience is supported by over 20 years in the mental health field. I have been in private practice for over a decade. Working with my clients healing has been an ongoing evolution. My understanding of what promotes holistic wellness emotionally, spiritually, physically, and interpersonally continues to grow. My processing focuses on the conditioning that shapes our perception of life so that we may experience a more authentic, free, and harmonious journey.

I have a psychodynamic approach that’s rooted in attachment theory, bio-social recovery model that explores the origin of our primitive world. During the clinical process we address the multi-generational transmission by compassionately unraveling the defensive patterns that at one time kept us safe. My experience is that the majority of children’s symptomatology stem from the friction that emerges when meeting their parent’s unconscious programming. Systematically the whole family works together to generate awareness and understanding that allows them to return to the more natural and loving fluid harmonious state.

Opening our higher consciousness allows the flexibility to rewire our brains through kindness and corrective emotional relationships. This is in an alchemetic process. Throughout my years as a provider the majority of the children I serve enter therapy hijacked by their sympathetic nervous system and repeatedly engage in a fight, flight strategy governed by their individual processing. This activation threatens and triggers their parents and everyone ends up stuck in this repetitive dysfunctional dance. Through loving awareness together this pattern can be freed and joy, expansion, and peace will return.

I facilitate family, couples, and individual sessions. My process in a non-pathology-based approach to integrate self compassion with awareness so that we can recapture our true selves and co-create a life we are designed to embrace.

I am also specialized in meditation and collaborative law to support families going through transitions with divorce. It’s essential for the child’s well-being that this process is done mindfully to alleviate alienation or loyalty bonds.

We are all interconnected on a deeper level. Only love is real.